We report on the generation of a spinning twin-mode with two bright spots in a biomaterial, bacteriorhodopsin (bR), suspension pumped by an optical vortex. The spinning direction of the twin-mode is fully assigned by the handedness of the incident optical vortex. This phenomenon occurs owing to the spatial soliton effects in the bR suspension.
Optical vortex possesses an on-axial phase singularity and an orbital angular momentum (OAM) due to its spiral wavefront characterized by a topological charge ℓ. OAM of the optical vortex can twist or spin the target materials, such as silicon, metal, and polymer, to form chiral structures.
In this paper, we report on the creation of helical microfibers by irradiating picosecond optical vortex pulses with a wavelength of 532 nm to ultraviolet curing resin via a two-photon-absorption photopolymerization process.
Self-focusing effect of incident vortex pulses, arising from the photo-polymerization, confines efficiently optical vortex field to form a self-written helical fiber waveguide with the help of OAM transfer effect.
The resulting helical microfibers exhibited a length of ~300 μm Also, we could control the twisted direction of fibers merely by changing the sign of the topological charge of optical vortex. These experiments will open up a new way to the practical application of helical microfiber to optical communications.
Photopolymerization, the process of using ultraviolet light to activate polymerization within resins, is a powerful approach to create arbitrary, transparent micro-objects with a resolution below the diffraction limit. Importantly, to date all photopolymerization studies have been performed with incident light fields with planar wavefronts and have solely exploited the intensity profile of the incident beam. We investigate photopolymerization with light fields possessing orbital angular momentum (OAM), characterized by the topological charge “l”. We show that, as a consequence of nonlinear self-focusing of the optical field, photopolymerization creates an annular-shaped vortex-soliton and an associated optical fibre, which exhibits a helical trajectory, with a chirality determined by the sign of “l”. In particular, due to a transverse modulation instability in the nonlinear self-focusing photopolymer, the vortex beam breaks up into the “l” solitons or microfibers, each of which exhibit helical trajectories and together form a bundle of helical microfibers. Our numerical simulations, based on the nonlinear paraxial wave equation for the photopolymer, captures all the experimental observations for a variety of optical vortices characterized by “l”. This therefore represents a new physical manifestation of the use of OAM light fields. This research opens up a new application for light fields with OAM, and our generated microfibers may have applications in optical communications and micromanipulation. In a broader context, our work adds a new facet to the emergent field of helical fibres that have themselves recently come to the fore in the photonic crystal community as a route to generating fields with OAM.
Photopolymerization, the process of using ultraviolet light to activate polymerization within resins, is a powerful approach to create arbitrary, transparent micro-objects with a resolution below the diffraction limit. Such microstructures have been optimized for optical manipulation and are finding application elsewhere, including micro-optics, mechanical microstructures and polymer crystallography. Furthermore, due to self-focusing, photopolymerization can form a waveguide, which develops into an optical fibre as long as submillimeters. Importantly, to date virtually all photopolymerization studies have been performed with incident light fields possessing planar wavefronts and simply exploit the beam intensity profile. Here we investigate photopolymerization of ultraviolet curing resins with a light field possessing orbital angular momentum (OAM). We show that the annular vortex beam breaks up via modulation instability into the m-microfibers, depending on the azimuthal index m of an incident optical vortex. These microfibers exhibit helical structures with chirality determined by the sign of m and mirror the helical nature of the incident vortex beam wavefront. We have developed a numerical model based on the Beam Propagation Method that captures the key experimental observations for a variety of optical vortices characterized by their azimuthal index m. This research opens up a range of new vistas and has broad consequences for the fields of structured light, new approaches to writing novel mesoscopic structures and applications such as in detecting or sorting the OAM mode (e.g. photonic lanterns) in areas including optical communications and manipulation.
We demonstrate a self-written sub-millimeter (>300 μm) helical fiber in a photo-cure resin by irradiation of non-diffractive 1st-order Bessel beam with an orbital angular momentum. The twisted direction of the helical fiber can be controlled by only reversing the sign of the topological charge of Bessel beam.
Photopolymerization, the process of using ultraviolet light to activate polymerization within resins, is a powerful approach to create arbitrary, transparent micro-objects with a resolution below the diffraction limit. We investigate photopolymerization of ultraviolet curing resins with a light field possessing orbital angular momentum (OAM). Due to total internal reflection of the beam within the cured polymer, the material acts as a waveguide, which develops into an optical fibre as long as submillimeters. Importantly, the cured polymer mirrors the energy flow and helical nature of the incident OAM field, resulting in an equivalent spiralling of the cured polymer waveguide itself. Moreover, the chirality of the helix, which is the direction of the spiral, can be controlled by inverting the handedness (reversing the sign of the azimuthal index or topological charge) of the incident field. As the fibre diameter becomes narrower due to self-focusing effects, incident light with higher topological charge cannot be maintained within the single-mode structure of the fibre. We show that the fibre repeatedly branches into a bundle of intertwined fibre guides, each of which carries a fundamental mode of the OAM. Such fibre structures represent a novel form of photonic lanterns. This research opens up a range of new vistas and has broad consequences for the fields of structured light, new approaches to writing novel mesoscopic structures and applications such as in detecting or sorting the OAM mode in areas including optical communications and manipulation.
We presented the irradiation of optical vortex to ultraviolet (UV) curing resin structures a twisted polymer fiber. A
continuous-wave ultraviolet optical vortex, focused at a glass cell containing the cure resin, allowed us to shape a twisted
polymeric fiber with a diameter of a few micrometer and a length of ~160 μm with an exposure time of < 1 second. Twisted
direction of the fiber was also controlled by inverting the handedness of the optical vortex.
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